HONKY-TONK ENGLISH

I first met Juan when he came by my house to give me a quote on a remodel project, in the suburbs of Atlanta.  He stepped out of his truck, a dented white pickup that looked like it had lived at least three separate lives.  He greeted me with a confident, “Mister Jeff, my friend!  Today….we fix everything.  No problem.  Like a country song, yes?”

                  That should have been my first warning.

                  Juan, an immigrant from south of the border, was a building contractor by trade, spoke English in a way that was both impressive and deeply confusing.  He had learned it, as he proudly told me, by listening to country music while driving a taxi in Texas.

                  “I learn from the best teachers,” he said, nodding seriously.  “George Strait….. Alan Jackson…and one man named Toby, who is very angry but….God bless…so patriotic.”

                  Now, I prided myself on my Spanish.  I’d studied it, practiced it, even had used it ordering food, without accidentally asking for a shoe instead of soup.  But standing there with Juan, I quickly realized I was about as fluent as a toddler with a phrasebook.

                  Our conversations became a linguistic jambalaya – half English, half Spanish, and half wild gesturing. Yes, that’s three halves!  That’s how confusing it was.

                  One morning, I asked him, “Juan, did the materials arrive?”

                  He nodded thoughtfully, “Si… the madera is here. But …..how you say…. The truck, she broke my corazón.”

                  “Your heart?”  I asked.

                  He shook his head.  “No, no.  The axle. 

                  Another time, I tried to explain a design change, with my limited Spanish, “Necesitamos mover la Puerta….uh…. two feet….hacia la izquierda. »

                  He squints, processing.  Then lights up.

                  “Ah!  You mean…. We take the door; we put her on the road again, like no good honky tonkying woman?”

                  I gesture widely and say, “No, we move the honky tonkying lady right here!”  and I take a pencil and mark the location on the two-by-four. 

                  He nods smiling and jots a few notes on his note pad.

                  I wonder if he is writing a new country music song. He is wondering if I realize the new position, I so eloquently instructed, would now be directly above a central air vent.

                  His crew, who spoke even less English, would watch us like we were performing some kind of experimental theater.  Juan would translate for them, but not quite accurately.

                  The moment that truly defined Juan happened late one Saturday afternoon.  We’d wrapped up a long week, and he leaned against the countertop, which he had built, and studied the job, like a cowboy surveying his land.

                  “Mr. Jeff,” he said, “In life….. you build things, you lose things… sometimes you fix things.  Is like a country song, always.”

                  I nodded.  “That’s….actually pretty accurate.”

                  He smiled, then added, “Aso, if something goes wrong….you blame the truck.”

                  “The truck?”  I question.

                  “Yes”, he said firmly.  “Always the truck.  Even if there is no truck.”

                  I laughed.  “That might be the most useful Spanish/English lesson you’ve given me.”

                  He grinned.  “Next week, I teach you about love, whiskey, and drywall.”

                  And that’s how I learned that fluency isn’t about perfect grammar or the right words.  Sometimes, it’s about meeting somewhere in the middle-with a little Spanish, a little English, a lot of hand gestures. …..and just enough country music to make everything make sense.

 

                 

 

                    

 

 

                 

What's A Pissant?

Wikipedia defines ‘Pissant’ as a type of Formica (ant) of the subfamily Formicinae, including species commonly known as ‘wood ants, mound ants, thatching ants, field ants and Pissants’.

I'm seventy-three years old and I just found this out. For the last seventy years, I thought I was a pissant. That’s what my momma used to call me.  I can still hear her saying, “Stop running from me, you little pissant!”  And with that she would start waddling at warp speed with switch in hand.  Being only six years old, I couldn’t run and laugh at the same time, and inevitably I would be caught, given a switching and once more reminded, I was a little pissant.

Even though at the time I had no clue what a pissant was, I kind of figured, by the beads of sweat on my mother’s brow, the tone in her voice and the fire in her eyes, pissant was not an endearing distinction. As years passed, I grew to embrace my new title, partly because I could run faster and my mother got slower. I think I was in college before I finally out-grew, ‘pissant’ and began being called Jeff. Even then, when the tone in her voice changed and she displayed those fiery eyes, I was given titles, such as, “You little piece of sh*t, or You little son of a bit*ch!”  Which I never could rationalize, because I figured that was a little self-deprecating for her to say.

It all started when I was six years old.  Our family was sitting around the small dinette table at dinner for supper. With the four us (my sister was yet to be born), our plates, silverware, napkins and glasses in wait, my mother began spooning the spaghetti onto our plates. Toasted garlic bread, sliced to perfection and portioned pl carefully placed on each bread plate.  With tea glass in hand, we held our glasses out, ready to be filled with her famous sweet tea.  As she carefully poured each waiting glass, I watched and the little pissant I was had an idea.  I reached my waiting glass across the table holding it steady as she carefully poured. About half-way, I yanked the glass from beneath the pitcher and sweet tea poured across the table. I laughed loud, expecting my brother and father to join, but no…….the look on all their faces said it all……… “YOU LITTLE PISSANT!” She yelled and commenced to pour the rest of the tea pitcher over my head.  Only then did my brother, my father and my dear mother begin to laugh. 

I’m glad after seventy years to have come to the realization that the term pissant was not really that disparaging.  Even though I was mischievous and some would say a handful, my mother did love me, and I loved her.  We had years of long talks, slow walks, and heartfelt moments together.  Those memories I will cherish till the day I die, when I hope this little pissant will see her again in heaven.

 

 

Do You Believe In Fate?

Do you believe in Fate?  Some suggest that time itself is guiding the choice, even when free will feels present.

I was once asked if I believed in fate. “Yes” I answered, without any hesitation. The confidence in my voice surprised even me, and later, when the room had emptied and the question lingered, I wondered why I had been so certain.

My mind drifted to a story I’d heard about Harrison Ford, the famous actor from Star Wars fame – how he wasn’t discovered through careful planning or ambition, but through a series of near accidents and coincidences. He was a carpenter, installing a door for Francis Ford Coppolla, the famous film director, when George Lucas and Richard Dreyfuss came to visit. Lucas noticed the young carpenter, his mannerisms, the look and the voice and on a whim asked if he would help him and read a few lines from a script, which happened to be from a new film he was working on, called Star Wars. A familiar face passing through the right room at the right moment.  George Lucas noticing what others hadn’t and eventually led to an acting part for Ford as Hans Solo.  A life redirected by chance so precise it felt intentional.  Fate, some would say, wearing the mask of randomness.

Do you believe in fate? The question, to me had come from Horace Holden, a minister and a successful businessman, a man who carried both faith and pragmatism with equal ease.  He asked it casually, almost offhandedly, yet it landed with the weight of a benediction.  In time, Horace and I became good friends, and through that friendship my world quietly widened.  One introduction led to another, like steppingstones appearing only when I lifted my foot.

Through Horace I met people whose names and stories I might never have known otherwise, including Don Ezell, owner of the famed Glen Choga Lodge in Topton North Carolina. Nestled in the mountains, the lodge felt like a place where time slowed and lives intersected, where conversations stretched longer than planned and strangers became familiar.  Standing there one evening, listening to the wind sift through the trees, I felt that same certainty I’d felt when I first answered the question, “Do you believe in fate.”

Fate, I realized, isn’t always dramatic. It doesn’t always announce itself with thunder or revelation.  Sometimes it’s a simple question, asked by the right person, at the right moment.  Sometimes it’s a friendship that opens doors you didn’t know existed.  And sometimes, looking back, you see that the path you thought you were choosing was quietly choosing you all along. 

 

Meatloaf and Memories

I think everyone has a stash of food-stained cards, scraps of paper ragged with age, and handwritten instructions stashed away in a kitchen drawer, cabinet or cupboard. Recipes passed down from Grandparents, Mothers, Sisters and friends from years past. Whether a complex description of how to properly prepare a prime rib or a two-ingredient concoction to satisfy a sweet tooth, they are all treasured by the lucky beneficiaries of these morsels of knowledge. 

We have all heard success stories about those who unexpectantly happened upon a secret recipe. Ruth Wakefield, who ran the Toll House Inn, in Massachusetts, added broken pieces of a chocolate bar to her cookie dough expecting them to melt evenly. Instead, they remained as chips, and the Toll House Cookie was born, becoming an American classic.

 Robert Cobb, owner at the Brown Derby restaurant in Hollywood in the 1930s, tossed together kitchen leftovers for a late-night meal. The salad became a star in its own right-loaded with chicken, bacon, avocado, blue cheese, and crisp lettuce. 

Caroline and Stephanie Tatin, two French sisters who owned an Inn outside of Paris accidently came upon the elegant upside-down apple tart, called Tarte Tatin. While preparing dinner for guests, Stephanie forgot to put a pie crust on the bottom of her apple pie. After realizing her mistake, she put the crust on top instead and flipped the dessert over to discover a perfectly caramelized apple topping.

One night, while Rhonda and I began our daily discussion as to what dinner would be, we mutually decided upon meatloaf. I had come upon the recipe years before and we both had enjoyed it over a period of several years. She asked me to retrieve the recipe from our secret stash of cards, papers and tidbits of magic potions. I pulled the box from the cupboard and began thumbing through the mess of papers, trying to find My Special Meatloaf Recipe. I was not having much luck and after about fifteen minutes, I suggested we grill burgers instead. Rhonda did not like this suggestion, so she began thumbing through the mess of papers and cards as I had just done for fifteen minutes. I took that moment to suggest that later, I would take the box of recipes and organize them. Maybe even digitalize each recipe and categorize them so that every recipe could easily be pulled from the computer based on whether breakfast, lunch, dinner, dessert, snack, etc. As I was explaining what I could do, she patiently kept thumbing through the box. She pulls a scrap of paper, food stained and wrinkled from age. She says, “Do you know who this recipe is from?” I shake my head no. She placed the piece of paper in front of me. She says, “That was the Bran Muffin recipe, your college roommate’s mother gave me forty years ago.”

 I picked up the recipe and read it. It was written in elegant cursive and even though it listed the ingredients and detailed instructions there was also a simple note of appreciation for the friendship she had shared with us over a weekend while she visited her son. It was signed Elaine Hyder.

 Rhonda retrieved another recipe, and once again, placed it in front of me. It was handwritten as well but was on a business letterhead piece of paper. Like the other, it was stained, folded, and the corners were ragged with use. I read the ingredients and instructions. It was signed by a dear friend from twenty years back, Janet Cooper.

 By the time I finished reading the last recipe, Rhonda handed me another. It too, was written on a scrap of paper, brown with age and in cursive. 

It said: Preheat oven to 475. Salt fowl & rub with margarine over his or her breast. Put in roaster with one qt. water at 9am and cook 1 hr. Turn oven off and DO NOT OPEN, until Ralph gets up. 

I held the piece of paper and realized it was written by Rhonda’s mother, Betty. I also realized that her reference to Ralph was Rhonda’s father. Both Betty and Ralph had long passed away but their memory had always held a special place in my heart. 

Rhonda finally finds my meatloaf recipe and retrieves it from the mess of papers and cards. She says, “That’s why I want to keep this box, just as it is. Not digitalized, not categorized, but requiring me to continually review each recipe. They’re more than recipes; they are our memories.